Gwendy offers a cheerful good morning to her across-the-hall neighbor exiting the building and bounds up the stairs to the second floor, feeling light on her feet. She unzips her pocket and pulls out her key and cellphone. She’s reaching for the doorknob when she notices the MESSAGE light blinking on her telephone.
“No, no, no,” she says, realizing she forgot to turn on her ringer. She pushes the button to retrieve her messages and holds the phone up to her ear.
“Hey, honey, I can’t believe I got through! Been trying for days! I miss you so—”
The message cuts off in mid-sentence.
Gwendy stares at her phone in disbelief.
“Come on…” She fumbles with the buttons, trying to find out if there’s another message. There isn’t. She hits the REPEAT button and stands in front of her door, listening to those four seconds of Ryan’s voice. Over and over again.
64
GWENDY SITS CROSS-LEGGED ON the bed, wet hair wrapped in a towel, and hits SEND on the email she just finished writing. Once the modem disconnects from dial-up, she closes her laptop. A look of concern on her face, she swings her legs off the bed and starts to get dressed. She’s tying her shoes when the phone rings.
“Hello?” Trying not to get her hopes up.
“Gwendy, it’s Patsy Follett. I catch you at a bad time?”
“Patsy!” she says, excited to hear the congresswoman’s voice. “I just responded to your email.”
“And I just opened it and read it. Figured it’d be easier to call.”
“Well, how are you?” Gwendy asks. “Happy New Year!”
“Happy New Year to you, too. I was doing great until I talked to my friend in the Senate this morning. Then, not so great.”
“You really think we’re going to be called back early?”
“That’s what he said. Some kind of emergency session because of President Big Mouth and Korea. First time it’s happened since Harry flippin’ Truman.”
“That means there’s more going on behind the scenes than the news is telling us.”
“Evidently,” Patsy says with disgust in her voice. “I gotta admit this is the first time I’ve actually been scared the idiot’s going to get us in another war.”
Gwendy looks across the bedroom at the button box on the dresser. She walks over to it.
“I lose you, Gwen?”
“No, no, I’m right here. Just thinking.”
65
GWENDY ONLY STAYS AT her parents’ house for a short time that afternoon, just long enough to talk Patriots football with her dad (he thinks Pete Carroll has to go after another fourth-place finish; she believes he deserves one more year to turn things around) and help her mom pick out an outfit for the New Year’s Eve dinner later that night at the Goffs.
She’s already outside on the front porch digging in her coat pockets for her car keys when Mrs. Peterson swings open the door and stops her. “Hold on a second. I need to talk to you about something.”
Gwendy turns around. “You need to get back inside, Mom, before you catch a cold. It’s freezing out here.”
“This’ll only take a second.”
It’s bad news, Gwendy thinks, reading the expression on her face. I knew it was too good to be true.
“I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
“Oh, Mom,” Gwendy says. “What is it?”
“I should’ve told you before now, but I kept chickening out.”
Gwendy goes to her. “Just tell me what’s wrong.”
“I’ve checked my bag, I’ve looked everywhere, I even called the hospital… but I can’t find your magic feather anywhere.”
Gwendy stares at her—and starts laughing.
“What?” Mrs. Peterson asks. “What’s so funny?”
“I thought… I thought you were going to tell me you were sick again, that the hospital had made another mistake.”
Mrs. Peterson places a hand over her heart. “Dear God no.”
“The feather will turn up if it’s supposed to,” Gwendy says, opening the door. “It did once before. Now get inside, you silly woman.”
66
ON HER WAY HOME from Carbine Street, Gwendy sees Sheriff Ridgewick’s cruiser parked on the shoulder of Route 117 with its hazard lights blinking. She hits her turn signal and pulls over behind him.
As she gets out of the car, she spots the sheriff climbing out of a snowy ravine that runs alongside the highway. He’s up to his hips in drifting snow and cussing up a blue streak.
“What would your constituents think if they heard you talking like that?”
The sheriff looks up at her with snow in his hair and daggers in his eyes. “They’d think I’ve had a shitty-ass day, which I have.”
Gwendy extends a hand to help. “What were you doing down there, anyway?”
“Thought I saw something,” he says, taking her hand. He pops out of the ditch and starts stomping his boots on the gravel shoulder. He looks up at her. “I was just about to call you before I pulled over.”
“What’s up?”
He rubs a hand over his chin. “We received a padded envelope at the stationhouse about an hour ago. No return address. Postmarked yesterday in Augusta.”
Gwendy feels her face flush. She knows what’s coming next.
“The orange ski hat Deborah Parker was wearing the afternoon she went ice-skating was inside the envelope. And stuffed inside the hat… three more teeth, presumably hers.”
Gwendy gapes at him, unable to find the words.
“To make matters worse, I just got off the phone a little while ago with that reporter from the Portland Herald. Someone leaked. He knows about the teeth we found in the sweatshirt and he knows about the package.”
“But you said it was only delivered an hour ago.”
He nods. “That’s right.”
“So how…?”
Sheriff Ridgewick shrugs. “Someone needed the money I guess. Anyway, he’s working on an article for tomorrow morning’s paper and he’s already calling the guy ‘The Tooth Fairy.’ ”
“Jesus.”
“Ayuh,” he says grimly. “Shit’s about to hit the fan.”
67
GWENDY’S BRIEF SPEECH AT the PTA New Year’s Eve party goes over well and earns her a spirited round of applause from the audience, along with the usual smattering of catcalls. Castle Rock may be proud of its hometown-girl-made-good, but there are still plenty of folks around here who don’t believe a woman should be representing their voice in the nation’s capital, much less a thirty-seven-year-old woman who happens to be a Democrat. That’s what many of the old-timers down at the corner store call “adding insult to injury.”
When Brigette originally explained that the plan was for everyone inside the Municipal Center to file outside to Castle Rock Common at 11:00 PM so the big midnight countdown could take place in the center of town by the clock tower, Gwendy believed it was the very epitome of a bad idea. It would be dark and freezing cold. People would be tired and cranky. She predicted that most folks would probably just head for their cars and the warmth of their living rooms at that point to celebrate the ball dropping with Dick Clark and assorted celebrity guests on television.